Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether his Department is using NHS volunteers to help with the covid-19 track and trace programme; and if he will make a statement.

The new NHS Test and Trace service was launched on 28 May across England. 27,000 contact tracing staff have been recruited to support this service with staff being a mix of paid call handlers and health professionals. They are in addition to existing public health experts from Public Health England and local government.

As these roles are professional paid roles, NHS Volunteer Responders are not currently being used to support the programme.

To increase self-isolation compliance, the Test and Trace programme ensures that people who are contacted to self-isolate are aware of the support offered by NHS Volunteer Responders which includes volunteers being able to help with food shopping, medication delivery and check in and chat phone calls.